Book Reviews
The digital home of book reviews and author interviews—and your source of the most up-to-date information on all things Civil War literature
Published: 7/10/19
Major General George H. Sharpe and the Creation of American Military Intelligence in the Civil War (2018)
The literature on Civil War field army staffs is slim compared with the steady procession of tomes on famous units, battle actions, and key commanders in blue and gray. Perhaps...
Published: 7/3/19
Private Confederacies (2019)
James J. Broomall’s Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers joins a growing wave of new scholarship investigating the Civil War experiences of common soldiers. Like...
Published: 6/26/19
Louisa on the Front Lines (2019)
Today, many recognize Louisa May Alcott as the renowned author of Little Women, but do not know that she was also an abolitionist, suffragette, and Civil War nurse. Samantha Seiple’s Louisa on...
Published: 6/19/19
France and the American Civil War (2019)
Stève Sainlaude, Associate Professor of History at the University of Paris IV Sorbonne, has authored two important French-language studies about France and the U.S. Civil War. Thanks to UNC Press...
Published: 6/12/19
James Riley Weaver’s Civil War (2019)
James Riley Weaver’s Civil War: The Diary of a Union Cavalry Officer and Prisoner of War, 1863-1865 offers a new and unique perspective on the Civil War. James Riley Weaver, a...
Published: 6/5/19
Spying on the South (2019)
As a young teenager enthralled by all things Civil War, I was gifted a copy of Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. The book, complete with...
Published: 5/23/19
North Carolina Unionists and the Fight Over Secession (2019)
According to author Steve M. Miller, popular perceptions hold that the southern states embraced secession at any cost. Miller claims that this view does a disservice to active and dedicated...
Published: 5/22/19
The Army of Tennessee in Retreat (2018)
On December 16, 1864, Union General George Thomas accomplished a goal that Civil War field commanders found to be virtually unobtainable: the climactic destruction of an enemy army. Confederate general...
Published: 5/15/19
Custer: The Making of a Young General (2018)
Although not as popular as U.S. Grant, William T. Sherman or Philip Sheridan, George Armstrong Custer emerged from the American Civil War as one of the most recognized and celebrated...
Published: 5/8/19
Fighting for Atlanta (2018)
Earl Hess has justly carved out a reputation as one of the most prolific, and best, military historians of the Civil War in recent memory. Hess’ Fighting for Atlanta: Tactics,...
Published: 5/1/19
A Fierce Glory (2018)
The years of the Civil War sesquicentennial produced a host of new books related to the Maryland Campaign of September 1862. Mostly, these books—like Dr. Thomas G. Clemens’ three-volume edition...
Published: 4/24/19
River of Death (2018)
Few people alive today know more about the Chickamauga Campaign than William Glenn Robertson. As director of the Army’s Combat Studies Institute, Robertson revived the original “staff ride” model in...
Published: 4/17/19
Meade: The Price of Command, 1863-1865 (2018)
The battles and leaders of the American Civil War have, for many decades, dominated the Civil War historiography. Historians have produced scores of studies on the generals who lead the...
Published: 4/10/19
Aberration of Mind (2018)
In Aberration of Mind, Diane Miller Sommerville examines hundreds of individual instances of suffering in the wartime and postwar South to reveal the ways the Civil War traumatized Southerners—and how that...
Published: 4/3/19
Holding the Line on the River of Death (2018)
Eric J. Wittenberg’s Holding the Line on the River of Death examines two cavalry actions on September 18, 1863, what he calls the first day of the battle of Chickamauga. Wittenberg...
Published: 3/27/19
This War Ain’t Over (2018)
In the current fractious political climate of the United States, concerns about racism, economic anxiety, and cultural pluralism are regularly voiced in an ongoing and divisive conversation about American ideals...
Published: 3/20/19
The Great Battle Never Fought (2018)
A relative quiet in active military operations in the East began in mid-July 1863 and lasted until the beginning of May 1864. The three-day bloodbath at Gettysburg had crippled both...
Published: 3/13/19
The 96th Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War (2018)
In the Civil War’s immediate aftermath, Francis B. Wallace, a Union veteran from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and associate editor of the Miner’s Journal, believed that the service and sacrifice of men...